I thought it might be beneficial to have a “be prepared” list to help your pet sitter do their job more efficiently.

• Food: It’s great when you leave the food on the counter for us; it makes it much easier to find. However, if your cats or dogs are anything like mine, leaving food — even an unopened bag of food — is an invitation to a huge eating binge. So, we understand if you need to leave the food in the cupboard.
• Treats: Yes, if you think food left on the counter can be a temptation, treats can even be more so. If this is the case, please do keep the treats in the cupboard, but preferably in the same cupboard as your animals’ food. It makes it makes it much easier to find especially when Fluffy is giving me that “you forgot my treat!” look!
• Medication: Please keep this in a secure area and be sure your sitter knows where to find the medication. Often the dosage written on the label of the medication has changed. For example, your vet may have initially told you to give one pill per day. Now, 6 months later, your vet has reduced it to ? pill every-other-day. Please be sure to verify with your sitter the proper dosage and, in the case of every-other-day medication, please be sure we know which days of the week we are to give said medication.
• Paper Towels: When we have clean ups, paper towels are a necessity. Please be sure to have plenty of paper towels on hand. Having an extra roll on hand does not hurt.
• Extra litter and food: Please leave enough litter and food. We recommend you leave more than you think your sitter will need. Trips do get delayed.
• Dustpan/hand vacuum: We are more than happy to sweep up the litter or food that has fallen on the floor, but it is difficult to do so if we can’t find a dustpan and broom. A hand vacuum works great too, but not if we don’t know where you keep yours.
• Old Towels: We really want to dry off Fido after a walk in the rain. And, even if it is not raining we would like to wipe off his feet before we bring Fido back into your home. If it’s the rainy season please leave us more than one towel for this purpose.
• Are you leaving on ‘Monday’ at Noon and asking your sitter to do the first visit that evening? Please be considerate and leave an outside light on for us. There is nothing more disconcerting to arrive at your home after dark and there are no outside lights on.
• Poop Bags: Please be sure to leave an adequate supply of poop bags and let your sitter know where to find them.

Your sitter will thank you for remembering the above items. And, the less time your sitter has to spend looking for these items, the more time we can devote to giving your fur kids our undivided attention.

Did you know that March 6 to 12th is Professional Pet Sitters Week? Take a moment to tell your pet sitter how much you appreciate them — you will make their day!

–Jan Brown

Jan is the Owner of Jan’s Pet Sitting and is a Pet Tech Pet First Aid Instructor.